How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Goal.
What does the ideal outcome look like?
Reality.
What’s the current situation—the good and the bad?
Options.
What are the options for moving forward? (Always start with the
other person’s ideas. Tell them you’re happy to add yours, but that you want
to start with theirs.)
Way forward.
What is their first step going to be? When will they take it?
What help do they need?
“When my staff come to me with issues now, I literally GROW-model it,”
Ndidi says. To get clear on the 
goal
, she likes to ask, “What’s going to make us
feel that this has been a success?” She says the “us” in her question makes sure
they explicitly agree on the right end point. “If we can get aligned on the ideal
outcome, in some detail, I’ve found I can worry a lot less about how they get
there.” As a result, she says she often spends longer on the goal part of the
discussion than on any of the other three steps.
To help them confront 
reality
, Ndidi tends to ask, “What does the ideal
situation look like, and what are the barriers to getting there?”
She has a few ways of drawing out their thoughts about the 
options
. “What’s

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one route you could take?” she asks first. And then, to encourage them to
explore more than one idea, “If that doesn’t work, what else could you try?”
Once a few ideas are on the table, Ndidi might make an observation if something
big seems missing—saying, “I notice you haven’t mentioned X”—before letting
her colleagues react. Then, to narrow the field of options, she asks, “Which route
do you want to go down?”
Finally, as they discuss the 
way forward
, Ndidi always asks, “Is there
anything specific that I can do to help?” It’s a good way of signaling that support
is available, even though the GROW model means her colleagues have done
their own problem solving. And she concludes by “making sure we’re crystal
clear on who’s accountable for doing what, by when. You don’t have to be soft
just because you’re not telling them what to do.”
Apart from using the GROW model as a backbone to her conversations, there
are a few other things Ndidi has found helpful in reminding herself to “coach,
don’t tell.” “I have a phrase on repeat in my head: ‘Don’t tell them the
answer!’
” she says. “I also physically lean back. In the past I’ve always tended
to hunch over the table, leaning toward them and writing down what they should
do. So for me, sitting back is a metaphor—something I associate in my mind
with being in coaching mode.”
Ndidi remembers using the GROW model for the first time with one of her
direct reports. “She came to me with a problem about an all-day meeting she was
planning. Several people who would be attending were unhappy about a